China: The explosive new mixes with the old, historian says

STANFORD -- China is changing rapidly but Westerners should not
expect the state to whither away as capitalism takes hold, historian Jonathan
Spence of Yale told a standing-room-only audience at Tresidder Union on
Tuesday, Nov. 29.

The author of nine books on Chinese history drew generalizations from the
long sweep of China's history to suggest some "constants" to expect as China
undergoes rapid economic growth. His talk was the second of six lectures
planned this year on China by the Institute for International Studies and its
Asia/Pacific Research Center. Other speakers who have been confirmed for the
Walter H. Shorenstein Distinguished Lecture Series are Harry Harding, dean of
the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University,
on Jan. 23 and Ying-shih Yu, professor of Chinese and East Asian studies at
Princeton, on Feb. 13.

Spence, who was co-chair of the first Yale faculty group to travel to
China in 1974, said China's history suggests that it is "traditional for the
state to have power over culture" but that "idealist dissent" also has deep
roots in Confucian philosophy. He expects tension to continue indefinitely
between the "urge to order" and "pressure to expand individual freedoms."

During questioning, Stanford Professor Lawrence Lau, an expert on China's
economy, asked Spence if an "urge to order" was not universal to cultures.
Americans, Lau noted, had demonstrated their "urge to order" recently by
demanding a stiffer law-and-order stance against crime.

Spence said he felt there was a difference between the Chinese and U.S.
situations in "the means one is willing to use to maintain [order]." China
has shown its willingness to use state force: in 1989 against dissenters at
Tiananmen Square and more recently, to forgo a likely medal in the Special
Olympics by refusing to let a discus thrower compete because he lost his legs
at Tiananmen Square. On the same week as his visit to Stanford, Spence said
an exiled poet was turned back at the Beijing airport even though the San
Francisco consulate had issued him a visa to visit his family.

Spence also suggested that "China's neighbors are wary" of China today, as
they have been historically because of China's preference to have "peripheral
states in awe of China's power² as buffers. Two recent examples in the
news, he said, were the Vietnam government's decision to open negotiations
with the United States concerning the potential American military facilities
at Cam Ranh Bay and Kazakhstan¹s decision to give up its enriched
uranium. China's oil exploration in the South China Sea, he said, makes
Vietnam nervous while fear of China gaining access to its enriched uranium is
one reason for Kazakhstan¹s decision.

"While not expansionist, China has been interventionist," Spence said,
getting involved in Vietnam in the 1760s and 1979 and in Korea three times
since the 16th century.

China has not launched an invasion from the sea, however, since its
capture of Taiwan in 1683, and its armies have "not been used recklessly,"
Spence said, although they have been willing to "drive people off their land
[within what is known as China] in the interest of the ethnic majority."

"On the whole, China has sought to buy peace as a cheaper strategy than
making war."

Democracy in China's future is a question mark, he said.

"There is a constant argument about whether the Chinese people are ready"
for democracy, but the country has had only one "moderately successful
election" in 1913. "The warlords destroyed the republic, but it was riddled
with graft," Spence said.

Some people say an election trend may start at the local level and work
its way up to the national level, he said. "I wouldn't think you'll get a
change until the [central] government decides on it because they think it is
organizationally efficient."

The Western idea that individual liberty is necessary for large-scale
economic success is challenged by China past and present, Spence said. Bright
entrepreneurs, he said, are creating successful companies by understanding
both capitalism and how to work around aspects of the governmental control.

In response to a question, Spence said he could not say how much foreign
investment and capital have unraveled Beijing's control of the Chinese
economy. Historically, foreign business has been successfully "controlled by
state rules and rituals," he said, and confined mostly to the coast, and some
of the so-called foreign capital flowing into the country is really new
Chinese wealth routed back into the country through Hong Kong.

Historically, he said, "most foreign firms have found, after extensive
experiments, that they really need Chinese intervenors of some kind or
another" to be successful at business inside China. ³The Chinese trust
Chinese, overseas and indigenous, to manipulate trade patterns. I think also
Chinese familial bonds have remained very strong.² Familial trade is not
in conflict with modern managerial theories," Spence said. "These sorts of
patterns are exploding, but they haven't exploded altogether. Historians
would say these are powerful factors."

China's population and environmental problems also go back a long way,
Spence said.

"China's population has been the largest in relation to other world
populations since we began any moderately accurate calculation," he said, and
historians can trace serious environmental degradation in China back at least
to the 14th or 15th century.

Deforestation of upland areas first led to erosion and floods, which led
to great hydraulic public works projects and sometimes social rebellions,
Spence said. The flow of new wealth into housing and roads will exacerbate
China's shortage of arable land, add to urban sprawl and lead to water
rationing, he said. More air pollution can be expected as the government
pursues its new goal of one car per family.

China's population, approaching 1.2 billion, is a source of worry for the
world, Spence said, but he added, "Maybe we in the West have lectured China
too much about this. China is now responding but it¹s responding in a way
we really hadn't anticipated."

China's policy of coercing couples into having no more than one child led
first to abortions and infanticide of females so that today, the ratio of men
to women at younger ages is three to two, he said. Recently, the government
announced it was banning fetal scans and sex-selective abortions but said it
would allow scans for families concerned about genetic defects. At least one
government official has been quoted suggesting people with genetic defects
should not have children.

"We are in a kind of nerve-wracking world of genetic control," Spence
said, which he called a "complicating development" in the problem of curbing
world population.

-kpo-

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